flim flam

I participated in a human rights conference this weekend. Two of the guest speakers (from CAW/MiningWatch and UFCW) were excellent and inspiring. They were not idealists (which all the student participants were) but realists. They knew they could make a difference, but not change the world, and were happy to be doing their part. I think. That is what I got from them anyway.

Of course, with any discussion of human rights, the scarcity issue rears its ugly mug. It is really frustrating that generating an ounce of gold can result in many tons of toxic waste:

Gold extraction produces more waste than any other mining activity. In fact, 99.9% of dug material is useless, as there are only 1 to 3 grams of gold in each ton of rocks. This "micro-gold", so to speak, can be found virtually anywhere, also in Europe. Searching for micro-gold in Europe, however, is out of question, and rightly so. Mining companies, most of which come from Canada, the United States and Australia, engage in gold extraction only where there are no strict environmental laws. Native populations, who depend on land and water for survival, are the victims of mining companies' craving for profit.

Big-scale industrial exploitation of gold sources started at the beginning of the 1970s, with the development of the cyanide gold lye-washing technique. In Nevada, cyanide gold lye-washing was used for the first time by Newmont. Today, industrial gold extraction is unthinkable without cyanide.

Sodium cyanide, a salt of hydrocianic acid, is a quick-effect poison. Dissolved in water, it immediately kills any life form. Cyanide is useful in the process of gold extraction because its molecules alloy to themselves particles of gold that are present in rocks. First, huge piles of ground rocks are imbued with cyanide solution. Subsequently, in a chemical processing plant, gold is refined and divided from the remaining minerals. Huge quantities of cyanide are used in this process: several tons per day, depending on the size of the mine and on the quantity of gold contained in the rocks.

Science came up with one option (although this was discovered in 1998 so who knows what stage it is at now - a cursory glance gives nothing):

Dr Peter Franzmann and Mr Matthew Stott of CSIRO Land and Water and CSIRO Minerals have identified several new species of native microbes able to break down the thiocyanate formed from the cyanide used to extract gold.

The project is funded by the Western Australian Government through its WA Innovation Support Scheme (WAISS), which fosters small innovative enterprises in the State.

Anyway, this is not the point. The point is that, still, even with everything we know, there are mining companies (and we extrapolate out to many different types of companies) destroying entire ecosystems in search of profit. While I can be somewhat swayed by arguments regarding oil/steel etc. - that we really do need these commodities in our modern industrial world, I am not so easily swayed by gold. We don't need gold.

Now, this is pretty naive of me. We have an incredibly interconnected economic system, where gold (jewelry) is an important part and can not easily be cut out. But, there is something that doesn't sit well with a destructive process that does not result in any real gains.

I guess the issue is of selfishness. This is a pretty big issue for me right now. I have no idea how the future will play out, but I assume it is going to be scary. I mean America is planning on selling off its forests to raise money for rural schools. They will get a billion and only sell less than 1% of the forests owned by the government, but still. It seems dangerous. The richest nation in the world should not need to sell off its natural resources for what is a pretty small amount of money. A billion bucks is ~$2.50 from each person in the states. Not much money at all. This seems like a desperate cry for help.

Stats on the american economy:

• The national personal saving rate has plunged to an average of 1% in 2004, shockingly below the 7% average for the last three decades.
• The unified federal budget is running a deficit equal to about 3.5% of gross domestic product.
• Outlays for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, now 8% of gross domestic product, will climb to somewhere near 13% by 2030 as the baby boom generation ages and retires.
• U.S. current account deficit, a measure of how much more is bought from foreigners than is sold to them, has climbed to 6% of gross domestic product.

Now, maybe there will not be an economic collapse (although many think there will be) but Buffett says that at least 3% of output will be required to pay the interest on the massive amount of money lent to the states. And if the States ever want to get out of debt, it would require a huge decline in U.S. consumption with disastrous consequences for the global economy and the lives of U.S. workers and retirees. If it is not paid off the the already-projected squeeze on health care and education spending just gets worse.

Okay, I am getting off topic, but these disparate things are all connected. I've heard that the fear of nuclear annihilation caused the baby boomers to act strangely, to consume more than they should have because they figured they weren't going to live. Same deal with the babies being born 9 months after 9/11. When humans get scared that their lives are going to end/change-for-the-worse, they do all the things they wanted to do. No regrets. Then, if the world doesn't end then we, unfortunately, have really fucked things up. It seems to me that, for a while now (like 20-30 years), the media has been scaring the shit out of us (global warming, terrorists, etc.) and so we feel (perhaps justifiably) that the world is not going to survive as we know it (ask your friends if they think that our current way of life is sustainable). Therefore we have to live in the moment. Have as much fun as possible. Which, ultimately, leads to a self-fufilling prophecy.

The problem I have is that I am not sure I care. "Why won't somebody think of the children" is a well worn battle cry, but should we think about the children? Maybe it is right (or at least not wrong) that we consume as much as possible. We have all these objective and subjective truths thrown at us all the time. Subjective truths are pretty meaningless. Objective truths can't be known by us and if they are, the person who knows them is likely to be a modern Cassandra.

I'll take the wind out of the next paragraph by stating that I do care about people. Quite a bit. Even strangers. But should I care about other people? Should I care about children/the future? By the by, children don't make people happy. I thought that was strange. Genetic urges to procreate also result in general unhappiness. Our minds suck. I was talking to fenris (in the future) and he is pretty happy that he doesn't believe that we have a future at all. It allows him to act the way he does (although I am not sure exactly how that is - he seems to have his head screwed on pretty well).

Before editing, I did go onto to talk about: Soma, Big Brother, Logan's Run, "Half a Life" and "Benevolent Dictatorship" but I have been typing for a while and they were all sort of badly interconnected and rambly. I will post further thoughts later. This blog thing is fun/stupid-waste-of-time.

I made 4 boxes of Kraft dinner last night. I have food for a week (edit: just finished it. it is sunday. I am gross).